AS SHAMELESSLY as Hollywood serves up summer escapist fantasy for boys, so it does for girls (especially after the blockbuster likes of Mamma Mia! and Sex In The City) and this week’s Letters To Juliet is a prime example.

A romance set in Italy about a young American woman (Amanda Seyfried) helping an English lady (Vanessa Redgrave) track down a former love, it’s syrupy tosh and as calculated as the average boys’ blockbuster.

Letters To Juliet has the formula nailed, including a wish-fulfilment story that sees young Sophie (Mamma Mia!’s Seyfried) blossom from frustrated fact-checker on the New Yorker to proper journalist. Oh, if only the world really did work like that .

Yet, what the hell? There are two ways to watch this kind of movie: bury your head and groan or switch off your brain and embrace the fromage, complete with cringey dialogue (“Do you believe in destiny?”) and preposterous climax.

My resistance crumbled aided by the gorgeous setting, a sweetly affecting performance by Redgrave and plenty of (presumably) unintentional comedy.

The clichés come thick and fast, as you would expect of a treacly story set in Verona and inspired by Romeo And Juliet. Sophie is the aforementioned fact-checker, engaged to a chef, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), who is more excited about his homemade noodles than his beautiful fiancée.

The pair travel to Verona for a pre-wedding break where Victor disappears to a wine auction and Sophie stumbles upon the supposed courtyard of Juliet Capulet, where love-sick tourists leave heartfelt missives in the brickwork.

A team of local volunteers reply to every letter, dispensing romantic advice, a real-life tradition that Sophie becomes a part of after discovering a letter tucked behind a loose brick, unread since 1957.

The author of the letter is widowed English lady Claire (Redgrave) who, after receiving Sophie’s very belated reply, appears in Italy with her nephew Charlie (Christopher Egan), inspired to track down a long-lost Italian love. It’s all thoroughly daft and unbelievable.

Charlie, meanwhile, is a hilariously priggish twit who blames Sophie for his grandmother’s bonkers mission, setting the scene for an inevitable “opposites attract” love match.

The group embark on a picturesque road trip to locate the long-lost love, with Sophie keeping notes in the hope that the story will prove her big break.

If the screenplay makes little attempt to convince, the story is sweet and Redgrave so unexpectedly luminous that it’s hard not to be charmed and even occasionally moved.

There’s also the added attraction of seeing her perform opposite her real-life husband, Franco Nero, who pops up in a key role.

Seyfried is suitably doe-eyed and becoming and Egan is, despite the best efforts of the script, really quite likeable. Letters To Juliet may be nothing to write home about but, as summer escapism for girls, it ticks the right boxes.

There’s not much escapism in Brooklyn’s Finest. It’s a dour cop drama that appears to have drifted in from the Seventies with its portrayal of a grubby New York and morally compromised characters.

Richard Gere, Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke play three troubled police officers whose lives are fated to connect at the end of a long week, the last before Gere’s dejected veteran, Eddie, retires.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) it’s well-made, convincing and intelligent, with some fine performances, including one from the long-forgotten Wesley Snipes as a drug dealer whose best mate, undercover cop Cheadle, is tasked with taking him down.

Yet it suffers from sluggish pacing and predictability. You can pretty much guess the outcome for each, while Gere struggles to animate a lifeless character (so boring even his prostitute gives him the heave-ho).

Sean Bean plus sword is almost always a guarantee of entertainment but although the Sharpe star gives a terrific performance in Black Death, as an intimidating knight with a troubled soul, there is a surprising dearth of excitement.

Directed by British horror specialist Christopher Smith (Creep, Severance), the picture is oddly plodding for a story set in the plague-ridden Middle Ages, lacking the energy and invention of his previous films.

It’s a men-on-a-mission movie with Bean’s knight Ulric leading a band of mercenaries to uncover the truth behind a village mysteriously left untouched by the great plague of 1348. Could it be witchcraft?

The production values and performances are good, with Andy Nyman’s demented torturer, Dalywag, a particular treat but only towards the end does Smith serve up the required action and gratuity.

In real life beautiful, sympathetic women may fall for narcissistic bores but it’s hard to pull off in the movies. In Greenberg we are asked to believe that Ben Stiller’s bitter, failed musician Roger Greenberg could possibly interest a sweet, attractive young woman, Florence (Greta Gerwig) whose path he crosses while house-sitting for his brother in Los Angeles.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, this low-key drama is a ponderous misfire, polluted by the obnoxious presence of its witless title character. Stiller, however, gives a strong performance.